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Operation “Beat into Submission” is a resounding success

Yaz refererenced this BBC story in his post on copy protected CD's, but I'd like to call special attention to it. Digital Rights Management isn't going to stop users from encoding and sharing their movies and music, according to four Microsoft researchers.

Their whitepaper (.doc format) makes for a good read if you want to see the theory and resulting (projected) failure of full blown DRM deployment. The best part is that they consider the social aspects of DRM implementation. This paper isn't looking solely at the "Hey, we have to stop these heartless thieves" aspect, but the more correct "Why would a user pay for a product that he or she can't use?" From their whitepaper:

From the point of view of economic theory, this has profound implications for business strategy: for example, increased security (e.g. stronger DRM systems) may act as a disincentive to legal commerce. Consider an MP3 file sold on a web site: this costs money, but the purchased object is as useful as a version acquired from the darknet [Exp: A theoretical P2P distribution system]. However, a securely DRM-wrapped song is strictly less attractive: although the industry is striving for flexible licensing rules, customers will be restricted in their actions if the system is to provide meaningful security. This means that a vendor will probably make more money by selling unprotected objects than protected objects. In short, if you are competing with the darknet, you must compete on the darknet?s own terms: that is convenience and low cost rather than additional security.

I'm sending out a hearty huzzah to Peter Biddle, Paul England, Marcus Peinado, and Bryan Willman. Thanks for presenting the arguments that the enthusiast community has been preaching for years in a way that it will get a bit of attention. Take the time to read their paper, it's very good.